Bengal have tough task on hand against Mumbai

Mumbai:High-flying Bengal, the Ranji Trophy elite division group 'A' leaders with seven points in their kitty, would be up against 36-time champions Mumbai in the four-day league clash here from tomorrow knowing fully well the difficulty of taming the lion in its own lair.

The visitors have done well in their opening two league clashes against Maharashtra and Delhi, significantly both away from home.

But, they have a tough task on hand to repeat the performance against the Nilesh Kulkarni-led Mumbai, who has four points to their credit after taming Delhi away from their home environs, especially in the absence of Sourav Ganguly.

Mumbai have the batting strength, banking in the man on opener Wassim Jaffer, who has the penchant for making tall scores, talented youngster Vineet Indulkar, seasoned campaigner Amol Muzumdar and stocky all rounder Ramesh Powar.

The main hopes of Bengal lie in batting first and making a big total to put the onus on the hosts to chase it on a Wankhede Stadium wicket that generally tends to get slower and offer lower bounce as the match progresses.

Mumbai also have a well-rounded bowling attack, with equally effective medium pacers and spin bowlers at their disposal, which needs to be tamed by the Bengal batsmen.

The visitors top order batting, in the absence of Ganguly, appears a bit thin and over-dependent on Rohan Gavaskar.

But their bowling - spearheaded by the well built Shib Shankar Paul and supported by Ranadeb Bose and slow bowler Sourashish Lahiri who has been impressive - looks capable of applying the brakes on Mumbai batsmen.